2011 Nonprofit PR Awards: Public Affairs/Issues Management

U.S. Chamber of Commerce - ThisWayToJobs Board Game (Co-Winner)

To educate Congress about what American businesses face as a result of new and pending regulations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce developed an eye-catching game that put members of Congress in business owners’ shoes and showed them how difficult it is to navigate the regulatory environment. The ThisWayToJobs board game was created as part of the chamber’s “This Way to Jobs” initiative, designed to highlight the impact of burdensome regulations among members of Congress, the chamber’s members and the public.

“The ThisWayToJobs board game was the most tangible example of the impact of regulations and the need to restore checks and balances to our system,” says Margaret Shepard, U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior director of marketing. Creating and distributing the game (both on a board and online) to Capitol Hill in two months’ time, media buzz resulted in weekly Web traffic jumping from 192 visitors to 3,754.

In August 2010, The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) notified FD, a communications consultancy, about Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s intent to sign a measure exempting his state from a Medicare rule that would allow Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists to administer anesthesia for all medical procedures without supervision by anesthesiologists or other physicians. If Colorado were to opt out of this rule, the state would be jeopardizing patient safety, decreasing quality of care and threatening the future of anesthesiology as a physician specialty. In response, FD and the ASA launched a public affairs campaign integrating grassroots education, digital marketing, media relations and advertising to persuade Ritter to reconsider. As a result of the campaign, Ritter’s office received more than 1,600 phone calls and 57,000 e-mail alerts and, most notably, he delayed his decision to sign the measure.

Honorable Mentions

National Shooting Sports Foundation Inc. - Hunting Works for America:To raise awareness about the role of hunters as a driver of employment for retailers, restaurants and hotels, the NSSF outreach included state-specific branding, eye-catching Web sites, a Facebook page and Twitter handle. Over 200 organizations partnered with the foundation in three months.

Ruder Finn and the Alice Ferguson Foundation - Taking Action Against Trash: To combat the problem of stormdrain litter across the Potomac Watershed, the Alice Ferguson Foundation’s (AFF) multi-state Trash Free Potomac Watershed Initiative (TFPWI) campaign to change littering behavior featured a comprehensive set of outreach tools—including guidelines, tips and template materials—to easily enable jurisdictions to reach out to their respective constituents.

In this 5th volume of PR News’ Book of Employee Communications, our authors cover more than 45 articles on crisis communications, social media policies, human resources collaboration, brand evangelism and more.